Lab Girl

This chapter describes a road trip from Georgia to San Francisco which coincides with Jahren’s manic cycling. In the summer of 1998, Jahren and Bill study plants’ sweating rates. As they go into the field, Jahren reacts strongly to poison ivy, one reaction which causes an edema that is treated in the hospital with a corticosteroid injection. Jahren enters a manic upswing as she leaves the hospital and believes she has found an answer to her and Bill’s research question. She convinces Bill that they should drive to a conference in San Francisco to present the findings, even though they have no funding.

Bill agrees, but in the ensuing days, Jahren cycles down “into an abyss of depression” (151). Bill encourages her to pull it together, and they begin their drive along with two graduate students. To save some time, Jahren insists they drive through Minnesota with no chains on their tires. They encounter a storm, skid on ice, and crash the van. They spend a night in a motel and continue their journey to the conference. After driving back to Atlanta, Jahren claims she had been at the wheel at the time of the crash, even though it was her student Teri.

Jahren describes Sitka as the “most inviting place in Alaska” (165).It was the site of the Alaska Purchase and bore witness to a “war between the species” (165)in the 1980s. In 1977, tent caterpillars attack a research forest in Washington, which triggers a crash in the tree population. However, Sitka willows withstand the attack. When the caterpillars eat their leaves, they become sick. Scientists discover that when a Sitka’s leaves are wounded, they produce a volatile organic compound (VOC), which then causes this reaction in caterpillars. Throughout the 1980s, Sitkas and caterpillars waged war with eachother, and the trees “ultimately turned the tide of war” (167).

This chapter describes the final months Jahren and Bill spend in Atlanta in 1999. During this time, Jahren contends with her health and struggles to sleep. She keeps getting her grant proposals rejected, noting a big factor being that she lacked a research “track record” as a new professor” (168). She began a project with a professor while writing her dissertation, but it would be years before she could interpret the findings and publish the data.

Jahren strongly fears that her lab will run out of funding, and she and Bill struggle to scavenge for equipment and materials from other parts of the university. She notes how“the whole situation was beginning to wear on both of [them]” (170).

When Jahren can’t sleep during the night, she calls Bill:“Lately these long, bantering phone conversations with Bill had become the only thing that could harness my racing thoughts so that I might sleep” (173). During one phone call, Bill advises her to take Prozac, which Jahren refuses.

Six months later, the two move to Baltimore after Jahren secures them both jobs at Johns Hopkins. While there, Jahren goes to a doctor, begins taking medication, and starts caring for her health.